Knitwear

Here at The Fashion Police, we’re not fans of Christmas jumpers. No, not even when they’re being worn “ironically”. Yes, it’s OK that you hate us for it, because seriously: who WOULDN’T want to wear a hilariously ugly sweater with a cartoon picture of Santa Claus stuck on the front? Er, we wouldn’t. And, more to the point, we wouldn’t want to waste our money on something we’d just be wearing for the sake of “joining in”, so assuming that we absolutely HAD to wear a Christmas jumper, here are some of the jumpers we’d choose… 01. H&M ‘Honey It’s Cold Outside’ jumper We’re fond of a good ol’ slogan sweater, and although the slogan on this one is definitely…

It’s sweater weather! No doubt you’ll have already seen a million fashion editorials, and a million-and-one blog posts helpfully informing you of this very fact. Gone are the days when the humble sweater was the “sensible” choice for a cold day, however. No, today’s sweaters are fashion-forward, edgy and unique. And probably not much use on a cold day, come to think of it. Take a look at this suspect, for instance: Costume National Wool Vest, $999 We guess you could layer something under it if you actually wanted to beat the chill in it? You’d still look and feel like you were in a cocoon, obviously, but maybe that’s the point? Along somewhat similar lines, but with fewer cutouts,…

Santa sleep tee, Topshop Once upon a time, Christmas sweaters were the kind of items that were worn just once a year (Christmas Day itself), and normally out of a sense of obligation: well, if someone had gone to the trouble of knitting one for you, the least you could do was to wear the thing for a few hours, huh? Now, however, things have changed for the Christmas sweater. Once the inspiration behind many an “Ugly Sweater” party, Christmas sweaters have now taken their place in our stores, and in our closets, and are being worn un-ironically, and by people who generally consider themselves to be “fashionable”. It may only be the middle of November, but we’ve already seen…

All items available at Topshop We had a lot of love for Topshop’s fluffy knitwear a few weeks ago, but we’re a little less enamoured with some of the latest fluffy fashions to hit our favourite website. With their lurid colours and long-haired wool, these pieces have more in common with The Muppets than they do with Lana del Rey and other fuzzy sweater-wearers: in fact the neon green number could work pretty well as a part of a last-minute Kermit the Frog Halloween costume, if you can just find some matching bottoms. Do you hold it against them, though? Well, let’s see: The case for the prosecution: 1. They’re (mostly) neon. Neon may well be fashionable at the moment,…

Louche ‘Ivy’ bow cardigans, £29 The Fashion Police are big fans of the humble cardigan. They keep you warm when it’s cold out (well, d’uh!), dress down too-fancy outfits, and make strappy dresses and tops suddenly appropriate for all kinds of settings they’d otherwise have been deemed semi-scandalous in. Honestly, we’d be lost without them. In fact, we feel like we should award them some kind of medal for services to style. We’ll look into that. Good cardigans, however, as is always the case with many of those so-called “wardrobe essentials” can be hard to find, (And why is it that the simplest things are always the trickiest to track down, anyway?) which is why we were so happy to…

Holiday sweaters. For some people, they will always be the horrid, scratchy things they were forced to wear every Christmas morning, and were begging to be released from by the time the turkey was on the table. For others, however, they’re a designer fashion statement, and a chance to splash some serious cash on the kind of knitwear that wouldn’t look out of place at an ugly sweater party. The ones pictured here are by the likes of Stella McCartney, Markus Lupfer and Moschino, and we’re hoping they’re REALLY impressive up close, because as you read this, little old ladies around the world are looking at this post, clutching their knitting needles and hearing cash registers ringing in their ears….

Move over Marcus Lupfer… Primark jumped right on the comic book trend with their ‘Pow!” sweater, which will set you back all of £14 (unlike the designer version, which was over £300). We hate to use the phrase “on trend”, so instead we’ll simply note that this will certainly help keep you cosy as the nights draw in. Sadly, Primark are yet to launch an ecommerce website, so you’ll need to track this one down in store….

Well, as long as your thighs are warm, who cares about freezing your butt and back? That seems to be the thinking behind this item, anyway. And really, this isn’t so much a fashion crime as it is a fashion mystery: the kind of thing that makes us shake our head and wonder who on earth would look at something like this and think, “£125? Oh HELL yes: this is just the thing that’s missing from my life!” Would you? [Buy it]

Just in case it wasn’t bad enough, that’s real fur attached to it, to create this strange, “This is the skin of the tiger that mauled me” effect. That certainly explains why it’s £200 on sale, but it doesn’t even begin to explain why it exists, does it? [Product page]

This outfit is one of those things that just gets stranger, and more confusing, the longer you look at it. At first you think it’s just a simple pair of jeans and a turtleneck sweater, and who could possibly object to that? Then you notice that although the model’s head has been cut off (Not by us, we hasten to add. Our officers are authorised to use force if necessary when arresting fashion criminals but not THAT much force…), whoever did it has failed to disguise that the turtleneck comes all the way up to her eyes: How can she breathe under there? How can she hear? Or speak? Does her union rep know about any of this? Then you realise…

“Gosh!” we thought, “It’s not like our old friends at Bless to make an item of clothing that looks, well, ordinary. We’re more used to seeing hairy shoes, strange, off-the-shoulder suit jackets, and who could forget the Ra Multispaghetti dress? But these… these look like regular turtleneck sweaters!” Sigh. At least some things never change, eh? Of course, you don’t have to be in the Fashion Police detective squad to see what happened here. Obviously one sweater stole the back right off the other one. And turned it into a … knapsack? A cape? We have no idea. The good news is that there’s really only one fashion criminal in this post: the yellow sweater is guilty as sin. Its blue…

Something’s missing here. Over the years we’ve been policing the world of fashion, we’ve come to the conclusion that fashion victims live in a completely different climate from the rest of us. In fashion land, it’s always warm enough for shorts… but also cold enough for boots. It’s cold enough for the fashionista’s favourite thing – LAYERING, and LOTS OF IT – but at the same time warm enough for bare legs and sandals. And today we learn that in the land of the fashionable, it’s often cold enough to need a thick-knick sweater… but simultaneously so warm that you’d want to hack a huge square out of the front of it, exposing your naked body from nipple to clavicle….

As far as Stuck Together Clothes Crimes go, sweaters with attached gloves have to be amongst the most hilarious. Seriously, can YOU look at the image above and keep a straight face? We’re impressed, if so. As chucklesome as this is, though, the fact remains that most glove sweaters are the type your mother used to DIY for you when you were a kid, i.e. the gloves can be removed, which makes the item just a bit unnecessary (unless you’re REALLY prone to losing your gloves, obviously, but even if you are, do you really want to have to wear the same sweater day after day, just so you can attach them to it? Thought not.), as opposed to being…

[Image: A|Wear] Knitwear: it’s one of those wardrobe staples, especially at this time of year, as the weather starts to turn colder, and our closets start to fill up with winter woolies. Is it too much to ask that it actually be cute, though? Well, thankfully not: we’ve rounded up some of our favourite pieces of knitwear for the coming season – take a look and see what we’ve found! 40s style angora cardigans: 40 euros at A|Wear Now, we have to admit to being a little confused by the concept of short-sleeved sweaters. They’re cute, sure, but it can be hard to know when to wear them, because when it’s cold enough for sweaters, it’s normally too cold for…

This is a sweater. We know. The good news is it’s already sold out, so there’s no chance of anyone buying it and actually wearing it. (Or, wait: maybe that’s the bad news, because it means people are already wearing it?) The bad news, meanwhile, is that it may be sold out, but it’s still watching you. And it will no doubt be appearing in your nightmares tonight. Have a good weekend!

Remember when you were a little kid and your mother would sew your gloves into the sleeves of your coat, so you didn’t leave them behind anywhere? Think of Comme des Garcons as your mother. And think of this £244 sweater as your coat. Now think of yourself as a fashion victim, because you just spent all that money on a plain black shirt with a pair of gloves attached to it, just because it was OMGDESIGNER… [Click here to buy it]

This post WAS supposed to be about Bless’s aptly-named ‘Mitchelin’ sweater, but actually, now we come to write it, all we can think about is those shoes. Oh, those shoes! The peep-toe boot rule is in full effect here, but honestly, we think the model is probably using the gargatuan sweater purely as a distraction technique, to draw our eyes away from those Frankenshoes. And we don’t blame her. We think the original £708 was maybe a little steep for this sweater (Although, mind you, it’ll definitely keep you warm. And you won’t have to buy any more sweaters ever again, because this sweater is like twenty sweaters.) but perhaps the sale price of £354 will make it more appealing…

Is it a skirt? Or is it a cardigan? It’s both! One minute it’s a really ugly skirt: But the next minute? It’s a cardigan! Isn’t that… clever? At first, we thought this garment was only a skirt/cardigan (a “skirtigan”?) hybrid in the same way that ANY cardigan tied around the waist could be described as such. Upon closer inspection, however, we see the “belt” around the neckline and the “skirt” at the hem, which makes this the ingenious and versatile item it is, and totes justifies the $900 price tag, don’t you think? Want it? Then buy it!

Just one wrong move… We somehow doubt they’ve invented the bra that will cater to the particular set of problems created by garments like these. (And bear in mind that if you’re not the same shape as the model – and most of us aren’t – you’ve no way of knowing just where those holes will fall!) And we thought backless dresses were a nuisance… [Click here to buy them]

“No, seriously, I’m a size 0 – look how tiny my clothes are!” Well, that’s one way to try to trick people into thinking you wear a smaller size than you really do, we guess. And also a good way to make yourself look like you’ve been raiding the wardrobe of very tiny people. Win-win! [Click here to buy it at Yoox.com]